Analyse af J.D. Vances 'Hillbilly Elegy'

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

The Hillbilly Elegy introduces us to the author J.D. Vance’s life story. Produced in 2016 it begins with Vance admitting that he finds his own the existence of his own book somehow odd in a way, due to his young age and since he hasn’t accomplished anything extraordinary in his life yet other than his ivy league Yale college graduation. Vance grew up in poverty in Ohio. He reflects his life in a family barely making it through, while he talks about the American dream. If one is to work hard enough, one can achieve just about anything, right?

Vance talks about how difficult it is to achieve the American dream for the white working-class. He illustrates that it is a possibility to move up in society and have a better life by getting into an ivy league, in his case Yale law school. Vance’s story is a success story about achieving the American dream, especially given the circumstances he was born into, “My grandparents, neither of whom graduated from high school, raised me... The statistics tell you that kids like me face a grim future – that if they’re lucky, they’ll manage to avoid welfare; and if they’re unlucky, they’ll die of a heroin overdose, as happened to dozens in my small hometown just last year.” (ll. 14 – 18). This illustrates how Vance manages to “get rid” of his social background, which is a life that revolves around poverty and substance abuse. He breaks an ongoing pattern by turning his life around by getting an education, which gets him a good job and settled lifestyle. He eventually becomes a middle-class citizen.